I have missing bits of memory as I have written in other posts. There are leading up memories, that are very focused and clear and they either stop abruptly or get very hazy with just an odd bullet point fact I am certain of about some events in my past. I have no memory of telling either of my Parents about what happened in the garage with him. So now we jump forward in time to the next instalment.
My Father has been dead a year or so and I am playing the role of dutiful daughter, supporting the bereaved Wife/Mother. She comes to my house for odd days, Sunday Lunches, and stays a night or two and an occasional weekend {more fool me} She has taken to telling me about Aunt Iris, who I have not spoken to or seen since I was 16, she does not tell me about her specifically though, instead it is focused on how my Aunt`s husband is, now in his late 90`s. His confusion, temper, likes and dislikes, appetite etc etc...Honestly...hurry up and tell me he`s dead already, I have absolutely no wish to hear the merest detail about him. I change the subject always and am cool and disinterested but she does not once pick up on my signals. OR she does and secretly relishes the distress it causes me. It becomes harder and harder to listen to. Yes I have some sympathy for my Aunt`s work load in caring for him but as I say its always about him not her.
So eventually I snap. She brings him up again and I say " Look I don`t want to hear about him anymore, there`s something I have never told you that he did to me once, something not very nice "... I falter, unable to find the words and wondering how graphic I can dare to be, both because I just don`t want to go there and get upset with the children in the house {though out of earshot} and also because she may well make it all about her which in a way would be worse.
She seems surprised...."Ohh Yes Amanda...yes you did tell me about it, I remember" She speaks to me as if I`m mad for not remembering telling her, maybe I am...why the Hell can I not remember telling her...? "Did I..?....DID I ?" I question her, a slight panic and confusion rising in me.... "Yesss" she drawls the word out, nodding her own agreement, she purses her lips dismissively, wrinkling her nose slightly as if shes been offered something for tea that she`s not keen on, processing that this is about me and not her and already becoming bored.... I stand at the side of her chair in disbelief as she begins to watch the TV...."Did you tell Dad?" I pester, desperate for her to stay tuned into the conversation..."Oh yes" she replies casually....more telly watching...."Well..what did he say ?" I feel like shaking her..my hearts racing now..."Oh He said `I can believe it of HIM Ivy`" she tells me without even looking my way....She makes herself comfortable in the armchair and says "Oh look Emmerdale`s starting now" signalling the end of the conversation. I wait a moment looking down at her, watching her glued to the screen as if we had just spoken about the weather....not an act of sexual abuse committed against her daughter.
I walk dreamlike into the kitchen and stand gripping the work top, both to steady myself and to reassure myself that everything around me is actually real, I feel so spaced out. And as I collect my thoughts and digest what has just taken place I realise I feel like an absolute piece of shit......completely worthless in every sense. Again.
So despite knowing what he had done to me she still felt it fine to try to elicit sympathy from me towards him.
She never once questions why I do not remember telling her and makes no attempt to remind or reassure me of her concern and support when I did.
She then tells me that my Father readily believed he was capable of doing that and yet they were still both happy to let me go and stay there all the same.
And she`s still more interested in Emmerdale than any distress I may be in.
Classic narcissistic personality disordered behaviour.
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